I was playing with Laelia on the shore one evening when my cell phone started buzzing in my pocket. I'd only recently begun carrying it around with me, all wrapped up in it's waterproof case. The screen had a giant crack from a moment of carelessness a few days prior, but I could still read the caller ID plainly enough.

Jake.

"Don't hang up," he said a soon as I answered.

Laelia tried to climb up my body to get to my phone, which she coveted passionately because it bore a sparkly casing. I glanced at Edward, who peeled our daughter off me.

"I'll just take her back to the house," he said. "Um…" Good luck, he mouthed.

"I wasn't planning to hang up." I watched Edward bear a protesting Laelia off to the rowboat and start conveying her to the manor island.

"Really?" Jake said, sounding surprised. "Well, you're going to want to in a second. I...think I may have fucked up a tiny bit."

"...And?" I said, more coldly than I intended.

"I'm in Glenveagh Park, or near it," he said. This caught me by surprise. "I came out here to apologize. I feel like shit. I was so pissed off when I found out what happened to you, but I've just been in hell for two months. I miss you. I should never have turned my back on you. I'm such an asshole, Bella. I'm sorry."

"Jake, you didn't have to come out here," I said. "You could have called."

"I know," he said. "I know that. I thought you wouldn't want to talk to me. And I was dying to get away from home for a little while. Ard helped me get out here. He was tired of all my moping. Said not to come back until I've either made up with you or gotten my ass kicked."

"That's sweet," I said in exasperation, "but—"

"I ran into that creepy redhead," he went on in a rush. Oh, no. "I didn't know where you guys were, just that you were somewhere around here. I had to basically run away from Tadi. She's gonna skin me alive when she sees me again. I'm just out here in the blind. I'm not good at telling leeches apart yet. I mean...vampires. So when I smelled the redhead's trail I thought it might be one of your people and I followed it, but it was her. She ran away for a while but then all of a sudden she turned around and smiled at me and said something I didn't really understand."

"What'd she say?"

"She said...she said that she hoped they'd kill me last. So I'd know how she felt. I tried to catch her to make her say more, but she got away."

"That's it? That's all she said?"

"That's all she said. But the part that really makes me nervous is the smile. Like, for a second she actually looked really happy. Like, peaceful, almost. Scared the shit outta me. Bitch is completely fucking bonkers. I liked her better when she was trying to rip my throat out."

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know," he said. "I've been following her trail, but I pulled over to call you. What should I do?"

What was this fresh horror? I was still struggling to make sense of what Jake had told me when I heard the distant sound of Alice's frustrated scream. I told him I'd call him back soon, swam through the channels between the islands and hauled myself up onto the rocky shore, then backflipped twelve feet straight up onto the soft grass of the house island. I made my way to the manor house, where Alice was grumbling furiously, surrounded by annoyed-looking family members.

"What happened?" I said, pushing through. "Alice?"

"I had her," she grumbled. "She was planning something. Dammit, I was this close to knowing everything!"

"Alice just had a vision," Esme explained. "Victoria will...or possibly already has—made contact with someone who can help her."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know," moaned Alice. "The vision cut out. Something blocked it."

"Well, I just got off the phone with Jake. He's in Glenveagh. He just ran into her and she said some things…" I related what Jake had just told me. What was going on here?

Alice's half-vision. Victoria's smile, her parting words. What had she decided? She'd been directionless for months now, just watching us, making no plans. Seeing Jake had made up her mind about something, but what? What allies did she have now that she didn't have before? Or, if she'd had them all along, why hadn't she asked for their help long ago?

She had no friends that we knew of. No family. She…

Wait. She did have family, sort of. Her sister Heidi, the only other member of Hilda's coven who had survived the Volturi's purge. They'd poached her. She was with them, now.

Victoria hated the Volturi, and her life was forfeit if she ever managed to get herself caught by one of them. That was what Esme had said. But if she could make contact with her sister, she might find a more sympathetic ear. She knew that James had been killed by a persona non grata of the vampire world, and that we had subsequently protected that killer. If I'd been foolish enough to be optimistic, I wouldn't have worried too much. Aro, the head of the Volturi, was supposedly a friend of Carlisle's.

But Victoria had managed to beat the last optimism out of me with Bree.

I didn't know very much about Heidi, but I knew a little. Her job was to arrange for the Volturi's victims to arrive at their door, devise alibis and cover stories so that investigations into their vanishments wouldn't lead back to Volterra. Aro had razed Hilda's sizeable coven to the ground to get his hands on one vampire whose new job description was, essentially, Glorified Maître d'. And he'd done so on far less plausible grounds than we were giving him, by our illegal alliance with the wolves.

What would he make of Alice, Jasper and Edward? What would he make of Laelia? We had no idea whether Victoria herself had figured out what Alice's and Jasper's powers were, but they'd both used them against her and James; and Aro was smart, and experienced. He'd be able to guess that Carlisle had been hiding some extraordinarily talented vampires from him. He'd order us to Italy, or else come here. He would find out everything with a single touch. He'd be presented with at least two vampires with exceptional skills, along with the plausible excuse he needed to do to us what he'd done to Hilda's family.

We would be screwed. Fully. Completely.

Esme reached this conclusion at the same time I did. She began coordinating an immediate counter-strike on Victoria while I carefully tapped Jake's icon on the screen of my phone.

"Bells?" He picked up at once..

"Jake, keep on her trail," I said in a rush. "Try to keep her in the area and away from humans. We have to keep her from escaping to Italy."

"What's in Italy?"

"In a word? Doom."

Edward was staying behind with Laelia, although he'd tried everything short of bonking me over the head to reverse those roles.

"One of us needs to babysit," I'd said in the four minutes it had taken to mobilize all of us.

"That should be you," he'd said. "It needs to be you. Bella, there is absolutely no reason for you to be the one to go into danger like this—"

"Edward, I love you, but you are ignoring the truth right now because you're scared. It needs to be me out there. I'm faster, I'm stronger, and Esme thinks my shield might thwart Victoria's power. Besides, if anything can get her to pause, it'll be the temptation of getting her hands on me." I held my hand against his cheek and allowed myself to enjoy the feel of his skin and the contours of his face for three seconds before taking Laelia out of his arms to snuggle. "Stop panicking. We aren't going to die."

"Waddat?" chirped Laelia.

"What's what, sweetpea?"

"Gonna die?"

I swallowed thickly and held her so close she started to squirm.

"Mama's going to go away for a little bit," I said. "But I'm coming back soon."

"Daddy stay, kay?"

"Okay, sweetpea, Daddy can stay." I kissed her several times on each cheek and then pretended to nibble on her neck until she was shrieking with giggles, then handed her back to Edward.

"I assume you've considered the extraordinarily high likelihood that this is just another gigantic trap?" Edward's lips pursed together.

"Esme thinks it probably is," I said. I stood on my tippy toes to kiss him. "In fact, we'll be lucky if it is. If she's just trying to draw me out by baiting me with Jake, maybe it means she doesn't have the nerve to go to Aro. Or maybe going to them is her backup plan, in which case we may be able to prevent it coming to that. Either way, I'm coming back from this. That's a promise."

It took us a few hours to reach Glenveagh National Park, and then more time to spread out. The whole way there, I struggled not to go full-newborn. It was hard, being away from Laelia, being this stressed, this agitated. My mind went in circles. Was Victoria still in the park? If not, was she somewhere we could reach before she hopped on a plane and was lost to us? Had she already eluded Jake? Or worse…? But I couldn't even face that possibility. She had to be within reach. Jake had to be okay.

Emmett was assigned to stick to me like glue; he was the only one fast enough to keep up with a newborn, although I did have to reign it in a bit so as not to leave him behind. If we scented a human anywhere in the park, he would have the unenviable task of preventing me from murdering that human. I hated that we even had to risk it, but letting Victoria escape would be worse by every possible measure. Together, we followed Jake's trail while the others fanned out across the park, hoping to hedge Victoria in.

"Poor Bree," commented Emmett as we vaulted over some low hills. "She was sort of damned if she do, damned if she don't."

"Victoria has a lot of karma headed her way," I said. "Bree's the least of it." I was thinking of all those kids she murdered in Seattle. Which led me to thinking of all the people she must have drunk over the course of her whole afterlife. Not "dirtbags", either, to quote Maggie. Ordinary people. Innocents. Kids, even. Was the number in the hundreds? Or the thousands?

"Well, let's get going, then."

Around sunrise, the scent trail Emmett and I were following—partly stinky Jake, partly Victoria—forked in three directions. I paused. looking around in confusion.

"Why'd it—?"

"They circled back and crossed over their own trail," said Emmett. "Which is good, because it cuts some time off our chase."

"How do you know that?"

Emmett chuckled at me. "Bella, I'm old enough to be your great granddad. I've picked up a few things."

Oh. Right. "So, what do we do now? Should we split up?"

Emmett looked pained. "I hate to say it, but I actually think we may need to. The longer we deliberate, the further away they get. We haven't come across any humans yet and I don't think we're likely to, which means babysitting you is just a waste of resources. Can you follow the detour loop and then catch up with me while I follow the freshest fork?"

"Shouldn't I take the fresher one? I'm faster."

"And walk right into whatever trap I'm assuming Vicky's set for you? I don't think so. You take the detour."

And abandon Jake? Let Victoria slip even further out of our hands? "Yeah, I think not," I said.

"Bella—!"

But I was already tearing down the freshest trail, no longer allowing Emmett to keep up. If he was satisfied there were no humans in the area, so was I. And I wanted this ended yesterday.

I left Emmett behind in a matter of minutes, though I could hear him calling after me for a quarter of an hour, his voice growing fainter and fainter and finally dying out altogether. I could smell them both, Jake and Victoria, and the trail only grew stronger as I sped through the park.

And then I could hear them. Footfalls. Jake's heartbeat, his panting. Closer, closer, and I was hearing even more. A metallic clink, snapping teeth, mocking laughter. Wind tearing at fur and hair and clothes.

Silhouetted against the pearly-pale tinge starting to influence the eastern sky, first Victoria and then Jake sprang into view. He was right on top of her. But she sidestepped his snapping teeth and changed directions, and then he was yards behind and falling. I saw him stumble, heard the ragged coarseness of his breath vying with the wind. He was exhausted. He'd been sprinting all night. His efforts had prevented Victoria from making it out of our territory. Jake was our goddamned savior.

Time to give him a break.

"Jake!" I screamed, because I wanted Victoria to know I was here but didn't want to do something so obvious as yell Come and get me, chump. Better for her to think I was just a bumbling newborn who didn't know any better. She was lost to sight again, but I knew she could hear me. I ran to the top of a hill so I was visible for a long distance. "Jake, I'm here!"

Jake's massive, grey-furred form came limping up the hill. He was completely ragged. Blood was flowing freely from his left forepaw and his tail was dangling at an unhealthy angle. He collapsed about ten yards from me and didn't move. I started toward him, but a furious stirring in the air caught my attention just in time and I turned at the moment Victoria launched herself at me. I threw her off and rolled into a crouch, then faced her, making sure to keep my body between her and Jake.

"You're done, Victoria," I said. "This whole park is swarming with our friends. You'll never make it to Italy. Give up."

"Italy? Why on earth would I want to go there?" Her voice was high and sharply accented. After all these years, she still had the voice of a street urchin. Canny, and wary, and sad. "Ohh," she went on, smiling, feral, violently beautiful in the wind, the vivid red of her hair and eyes standing out against this verdant landscape. "You mean...Volterra. Yes, it did occur to me I might call upon the fuzz for help."

"Whatever," I said. I didn't have time to play this game. "It's over, Victoria. You're not leaving this park. Ever."

She laughed gaily in my face. Jake had been right, she looked happy, and it was downright terrifying. "Ninny. Who said I needed to leave the park? It's the twenty-first century, princess. Haven't you ever heard of a phone?"

If I'd had a beating heart, it would have stopped.

"No…" The whisper left my mouth involuntarily. So this had all been for nothing. She must have made the call hours ago, while Jake was pausing to call me; the call had probably been what prompted Alice's fragment of a vision. We were fucked. We'd been fucked this whole time without knowing it. Never had a chance.

"Oh, please, by all means, kill me," she said. "If anyone's got it coming, it's me. I'm just glad I'll be able to kill you first. It honestly will help me find closure, you know. The cherry on top of the ice cream sundae that will be your entire family's annihilation." She paused, looked impossibly sad for a moment. "I think James would have been proud of me," she said quietly.

"Screw that, you're not killing me," I said, straightening my spine, planting my feet. She could look sad and noble all she wanted; it wouldn't change the fact that she was utterly batshit. "And you're not touching Jake."

"You are a sweet girl," said Victoria, almost sympathetically. She pulled a small metal hip flask from her pocket. "I knew you would be. Bree told me such a lot about you. She admired you, poor thing. And I suppose you think you'll fight me, and you'll win, because you're so young and so very strong."

I said nothing. I was done talking.

"Well," said Victoria pleasantly, "let's put your strength to the test, shall we? Bella, I'd like you to meet Riley. My human friend." She unscrewed the cap on the hip flask and tilted it. A stream of vibrant red drizzled onto her outstretched hand and my mouth immediately flooded with venom. "Or at least, what's left of him."

Don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe, I began to chant to myself. Don't you dare breathe—

"I think Bree was right to admire you." She rubbed her hands together as though washing them and advanced toward me, extending her ruby-smeared palms. I backed up a few steps.

—don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe—

"Poor Bella," she said, sighing tragically and tilting her head to the side. "You can run and save yourself. I'll kill the puppy. With him dead, perhaps your family will even weather the storm."

I backed up several more steps. I was halfway down the hill, Victoria had the higher ground, and Jake was still motionless at my back.

—don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't—

"Perhaps," said Victoria slyly, "with the puppy justly punished, they'll even spare your daughter. What do you think?" Did that bitch just—

I breathed.

Specifically, I exhaled a little of what was in my lungs. So she could hear it. I clutched my arms across my chest so she wouldn't see it deflating, flared my nostrils so the air leaving them would take on a higher pitch, sound more like an inhale. Then I dropped to the ground, covering my nose and mouth with my hand. Dug my fingers into the earth, buried my arm up to the elbow, twitched, strained, rolled my eyes around in my head, bared my teeth, tore at my hair and my clothes, did everything else I'd done the one time I'd actually smelled human blood. Everything I could think of. The knowledge that a flask of human blood was only feet away from me lent my performance authenticity. I was seconds away from losing my shit, whether I was smelling the blood or not. Just knowing it was there threw me into a tailspin over which I barely maintained control.

—breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe—

Victoria advanced. Her power would be telling her to flee right now if I were a threat. She wasn't fleeing, ergo I couldn't be a threat.

—don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe don't—

Victoria crouched beside me. I started to roll away from her, thought better of it, fought a highly visible battle with myself, stared hungrily at the blood, licked my lips, let out a whimper with the last of my stored air.

"You're doing very well, for a newborn," said Victoria. "I 'spect your friends have never let you sample the good stuff. Here we are, love, have a drop." She brought her hand closer to my face. If she got the blood on me I would break, I knew it.

She was watching my eyes, my mouth. Not my hands.

I reached out and grabbed her ankle. Brought my other hand around and twisted my hands in opposing directions. I felt her ankle bones brunch and crumble but I didn't let go.

"You little—" she shrieked, trying to leap away, but my grip was too strong and her ankle was too fucked up. She frantically dragged her bloodied hands through my hair, across my face, and that was it for me, I couldn't hold her any more, she was free, she was going to escape and what did any of it matter anyway—

Before she could move more that a step away from me, a grey shape the size of a galaxy soared over my head and tackled her, almost too fast for me to track. They went rolling several yards, and when they stopped rolling, Victoria's body was in one place and her head was in another, and Jake was standing over her corpse howling at the sunrise.

1. Victoria's whole mate-for-a-mate thing was goofy enough, but why is she targeting Edward's mate? Jasper and Emmett are the ones who actually killed James. Why isn't she targeting Alice and Rosalie?

2. Supposedly, Victoria hides her intentions from Alice by having Riley call the shots, but Alice's power enables her to envision futures that result from people's choices, and whatever Riley does in Victoria's service is still a direct result of her choice to use him, so Alice should be able to see...something. Besides, am I to believe that fledgling vampire Riley came up with a convoluted plan involving an army of newborns all by himself? According to Jasper, managing a newborn army is an undertaking requiring considerable skill and experience. Even if it is Riley carrying it out, the plan must have originated with Victoria. How can Alice not see that? I'm more likely to believe that Alice has trouble seeing Victoria's futures because Victoria herself is indecisive and takes a long time to reach a conclusion, or perhaps because her evasive power muddies Alice's ability to see her futures. But that is not, apparently, the case.

3. Could you believe how long it took anyone in the story to piece together the clues, even without Alice's help? Aren't these people supposed to be geniuses? Smarter than even a very smart human? You've all read Eclipse; how long did it take you to shout "Victoria! It's Victoria, you dolts!" at the book before flinging it at a wall? How obtuse can these people get? It's almost like they practice.

4. The more accomplices brought in on a con, the likelier it is to fail. I think Victoria, as a scrappy, street-smart escape artist, would know that. Furthermore, Victoria was a longtime victim of hardcore emotional, physical and sexual abuse—homeless, neglected and oppressed for the entirety of her human life and most of her vampire one. Knowing this, it doesn't seem likely that she would pin all of her hopes on a massive enterprise revolving around a large group of total strangers notorious for their violence and mob-like unruliness. I don't believe she would be able to get so far with such an enterprise before it begins to collapse under its own weight—a newborn goes rogue and spills the beans; Riley, still practically a newborn himself, makes a rookie mistake; Alice perceives Victoria's machinations in the form of a vision; or perhaps the Cullens simply pool their centuries of experience and intelligence and correctly interpret the signs.

I can believe that Victoria would try to achieve her goal by trickery, involving as few outsiders as possible so as to limit her exposure to co-conspirators' potential for treachery or error; when that fails to work, I can see her reluctantly reaching out to the one remaining individual with whom she shares a history of love and trust—her beloved sister, Heidi. What I can't believe is...oh, everything about Eclipse.